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China China and the Four Modernizations, 1979-82
The culmination of Deng Xiaoping's re-ascent to power and the
start in earnest of political, economic, social, and cultural
reforms were achieved at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National
Party Congress Central Committee in December 1978. The Third Plenum
is considered a major turning point in modern Chinese political
history. "Left" mistakes committed before and during the Cultural
Revolution were "corrected," and the "two whatevers" policy
("support whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made and follow
whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave") was repudiated. The
classic party line calling for protracted class struggle was
officially exchanged for one promoting the Four Modernizations. In
the future, the attainment of economic goals would be the measure
of the success or failure of policies and individual leadership; in
other words, economics, not politics, was in command. To effect
such a broad policy redirection, Deng placed key allies on the
Political Bureau (including Chen Yun as an additional vice chairman
and Hu Yaobang as a member) while positioning Hu Yaobang as
secretary general of the CCP and head of the party's Propaganda
Department. Although assessments of the Cultural Revolution and Mao
were deferred, a decision was announced on "historical questions
left over from an earlier period." The 1976 Tiananmen Square
incident, the 1959 removal of Peng Dehuai, and other now infamous
political machinations were reversed in favor of the new
leadership. New agricultural policies intended to loosen political
restrictions on peasants and allow them to produce more on their
own initiative were approved.
Rapid change occurred in the subsequent months and years. The
year 1979 witnessed the formal exchange of diplomatic recognition
between the People's Republic and the United States, a border war
between China and Vietnam, the fledgling "democracy movement"
(which had begun in earnest in November 1978), and the
determination not to extend the thirty-year-old Treaty of
Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union.
All these events led to some criticism of Deng Xiaoping, who had to
alter his strategy temporarily while directing his own political
warfare against Hua Guofeng and the leftist elements in the party
and government. As part of this campaign, a major document was
presented at the September 1979 Fourth Plenum of the Eleventh
National Party Congress Central Committee, giving a "preliminary
assessment" of the entire thirty-year period of Communist rule. At
the plenum, party Vice Chairman Ye Jianying pointed out the
achievements of the CCP while admitting that the leadership had
made serious political errors affecting the people. Furthermore, Ye
declared the Cultural Revolution "an appalling catastrophe" and
"the most severe setback to [the] socialist cause since [1949]."
Although Mao was not specifically blamed, there was no doubt about
his share of responsibility. The plenum also marked official
acceptance of a new ideological line that called for "seeking truth
from facts" and of other elements of Deng Xiaoping's thinking. A
further setback for Hua was the approval of the resignations of
other leftists from leading party and state posts. In the months
following the plenum, a party rectification campaign ensued,
replete with a purge of party members whose political credentials
were largely achieved as a result of the Cultural Revolution. The
campaign went beyond the civilian ranks of the CCP, extending to
party members in the PLA as well.
Economic advances and political achievements had strengthened
the position of the Deng reformists enough that by February 1980
they were able to call the Fifth Plenum of the Eleventh National
Party Congress Central Committee. One major effect of the plenum
was the resignation of the members of the "Little Gang of Four" (an
allusion to the original Gang of Four, Mao's allies)--Hua's closest
collaborators and the backbone of opposition to Deng. Wang
Dongxing, Wu De, Ji Dengkui, and Chen Xilian were charged with
"grave [but unspecified] errors" in the struggle against the Gang
of Four and demoted from the Political Bureau to mere Central
Committee membership. In turn, the Central Committee elevated
Deng's proteges Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang to the Standing
Committee of the Political Bureau and the newly restored party
Secretariat. Under the title of secretary general, Hu Yaobang took
over day-to-day running of the party
(see The First Wave of Reform, 1979-84
, ch. 11). Especially poignant was the posthumous
rehabilitation of the late president and one-time successor to Mao,
Liu Shaoqi, at the Fifth Plenum. Finally, at the Fifth National
People's Congress session in August and September that year, Deng's
preeminence in government was consolidated when he gave up his vice
premiership and Hua Guofeng resigned as premier in favor of Zhao
Ziyang.
One of the more spectacular political events of modern Chinese
history was the month-long trial of the Gang of Four and six of Lin
Biao's closest associates. A 35-judge special court was convened in
November 1980 and issued a 20,000-word indictment against the
defendants. The indictment came more than four years after the
arrest of Jiang Qing and her associates and more than nine years
after the arrests of the Lin Biao group. Beyond the trial of ten
political pariahs, it appeared that the intimate involvement of Mao
Zedong, current party chairman Hua Guofeng, and the CCP itself were
on trial. The prosecution wisely separated political errors from
actual crimes. Among the latter were the usurpation of state power
and party leadership; the persecution of some 750,000 people,
34,375 of whom died during the period 1966-76; and, in the case of
the Lin Biao defendants, the plotting of the assassination of Mao.
In January 1981 the court rendered guilty verdicts against the ten.
Jiang Qing, despite her spirited self-vindication and defense of
her late husband, received a death sentence with a two-year
suspension; later, Jiang Qing's death sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment. So enduring was Mao's legacy that Jiang Qing appeared
to be protected by it from execution. The same sentence was given
to Zhang Chunqiao, while Wang Hongwen was given life and Yao
Wenyuan twenty years. Chen Boda and the other Lin Biao faction
members were given sentences of between sixteen and eighteen years.
The net effect of the trial was a further erosion of Mao's prestige
and the system he created. In pre-trial meetings, the party Central
Committee posthumously expelled CCP vice chairman Kang Sheng and
Political Bureau member Xie Fuzhi from the party because of their
participation in the "counterrevolutionary plots" of Lin Biao and
Jiang Qing. The memorial speeches delivered at their funerals were
also rescinded. There was enough adverse pre-trial testimony that
Hua Guofeng reportedly offered to resign the chairmanship before
the trial started. In June 1981 the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh
National Party Congress Central Committee marked a major milestone
in the passing of the Maoist era. The Central Committee accepted
Hua's resignation from the chairmanship and granted him the face-
saving position of vice chairman. In his place, CCP secretary
general Hu Yaobang became chairman. Hua also gave up his position
as chairman of the party's Central Military Commission in favor of
Deng Xiaoping. The plenum adopted the 35,000-word "Resolution on
Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of
the People's Republic of China." The resolution reviewed the sixty
years since the founding of the CCP, emphasizing party activities
since 1949. A major part of the document condemned the ten-year
Cultural Revolution and assessed Mao Zedong's role in it. "Chief
responsibility for the grave `Left' error of the `cultural
revolution,' an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in
duration, does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong . . . . [and] far
from making a correct analysis of many problems, he confused right
and wrong and the people with the enemy. . . . Herein lies his
tragedy." At the same time, Mao was praised for seeking to correct
personal and party shortcomings throughout his life, for leading
the effort that brought the demise of Lin Biao, and for having
criticized Jiang Qing and her cohort. Hua too was recognized for
his contributions in defeating the Gang of Four but was branded a
"whateverist." Hua also was criticized for his anti-Deng Xiaoping
posture in the period 1976-77.
Several days after the closing of the plenum, on the occasion
of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the CCP, new party
chairman Hu Yaobang declared that "although Comrade Mao Zedong made
grave mistakes in his later years, it is clear that if we consider
his life work, his contributions to the Chinese revolution far
outweigh his errors. . . . His immense contributions are immortal."
These remarks may have been offered in an effort to repair the
extensive damage done to the Maoist legacy and by extension to the
party itself. Hu went on, however, to praise the contributions of
Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and a score of other
erstwhile enemies of the late chairman. Thus the new party
hierarchy sought to assess, and thus close the books on, the Maoist
era and move on to the era of the Four Modernizations. The
culmination of Deng's drive to consolidate his power and ensure the
continuity of his reformist policies among his successors was the
calling of the Twelfth National Party Congress in September 1982
and the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress in
December 1982
(see The First Wave of Reform, 1979-84
, ch. 11).
* * *
Chinese history is a vast field of intellectual inquiry.
Advances in archaeology and documentary research constantly produce
new results and numerous new publications. An excellent and concise
survey of the entire course of Chinese history up to the 1970s is
China: Tradition and Transformation by John K. Fairbank and
Edwin O. Reischauer. For a more in-depth review of modern Chinese
history (beginning of the Qing dynasty to the early 1980s),
Immanuel C.Y. Hsu's The Rise of Modern China should be
consulted. Hsu's book is particularly useful for its chapter-by-
chapter bibliography. Maurice Meisner's Mao's China and After:
A History of the People's Republic presents a comprehensive
historical analysis of post-1949 China and provides a selected
bibliography.
There are a number of excellent serial publications covering
Chinese history topics. These include China Quarterly,
Chinese Studies in History, and Journal of Asian
Studies. The Association for Asian Studies' annual
Bibliography of Asian Studies provides the most
comprehensive list of monographs, collections of documents, and
articles on Chinese history. (For further information and complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of July 1987
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